Place explored through a personal selection of the lives, novels, art, architecture, poetry and history inspired by England's industrial era.​

Stuart Maconie in Adventures on the High Teas (2009) has this to say about the North: … the worst of the North, who bang on about it being God’s Country. It isn’t. There is no God’s Country. Unless it all is. Or unless it’s Einstein’s Country. Merely coming from the north per se is nothing to be proud of. You have to do something, go somewhere, be clever and beautiful and charming and yes, maybe northern and share it with the world….the England that made Vaughan Williams and Shakespeare is dearer to me than the England that made Bernard Manning and Liam Gallagher.’ (p341)

Beryl Bainbridge Bradford Castleford CLR James Comedian Ian Smith Cultural Geography Ellen Wilkinson England is Rich Featherstone George Orwell Gerard Benson Get Carter Goole Halifax Harry Hopkins Huddersfield Iain Nairn Isle of Axholme Jack Common JB Priestley Kellingley Kevin Boniface Killingworth Manuscript in a Red Box Minty Alley Morning in the City Nelson Newbiggin-By-The-Sea Newcastle Normanton Pontefract Pre-Raphaelite Psychogeography Robert Westall Rotherham Sean O'Brien Selby Social History Southwold Stuart Maconie Ted Lewis The Division Bell Mystery The Rocket Tom Puddings Vermuyden